Yom Kippur War - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com Google 1973 Yom Kippur War: Background Israel’s stunning victory in the Six-Day War of 1967 left the Jewish nation in control of territory four times its previous size. Egypt lost the 23,500-square-mile Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, Jordan lost the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Syria lost the strategic Golan Heights. When Anwar el-Sadat (1918-81) became president of Egypt in 1970, he found himself leader of an economically troubled nation that could ill afford to continue its endless crusade against Israel. He wanted to make peace and thereby achieve stability and recovery of the Sinai, but after Israel’s 1967 victory it was unlikely that Israel’s peace terms would be favorable to Egypt. So Sadat conceived of a daring plan to attack Israel again, which, even if unsuccessful, might convince the Israelis that peace with Egypt was necessary. Did You Know?

On October 6, 1981, Anwar Sadat was assassinated by Muslim extremists in Cairo while viewing a military parade commemorating the anniversary of Egypt’s crossing of the Suez Canal at the start of the Yom Kippur War. In 1972, Sadat expelled 20,000 Soviet advisers from Egypt and opened new diplomatic channels with Washington , D.C., which, as Israel’s key ally, would be an essential mediator in any future peace talks. He formed a new alliance with Syria, and a concerted attack on Israel was planned. Yom Kippur War: October 1973 When the fourth Arab-Israeli war began on October 6, 1973, many of Israel’s soldiers were away from their posts observing Yom Kippur (or Day of Atonement), and the Arab armies made impressive advances with their up-to-date Soviet weaponry. Iraqi forces soon joined the war, and Syria received support from Jordan. After several days, Israel was fully mobilized, and the Israel Defense Forces began beating back the Arab gains at a heavy cost to soldiers and equipment. A U.S.

airlift of arms aided Israel’s cause, but President Richard Nixon (1913-94) delayed the emergency military aid for a week as a tacit signal of U.S. sympathy for Egypt. On October 25, an Egyptian-Israeli cease-fire was secured by the United Nations. Yom Kippur War: Aftermath Israel’s victory came at the cost of heavy casualties, and Israelis criticized the government’s lack of preparedness. In April 1974, the nation’s prime minister, Golda Meir (1898-1978), stepped down. Although Egypt had again suffered military defeat at the hands of its Jewish neighbor, the initial Egyptian successes greatly enhanced Sadat’s prestige in the Middle East and gave him an opportunity to seek peace. In 1974, the first of two Egyptian-Israeli disengagement agreements providing for the return of portions of the Sinai to Egypt were signed, and in 1979 Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin (1913-92) signed the first peace agreement between Israel and one of its Arab neighbors.

In 1982, Israel fulfilled the 1979 peace treaty by returning the last segment of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. For Syria, the Yom Kippur War was a disaster. The unexpected Egyptian-Israeli cease-fire exposed Syria to military defeat, and Israel seized even more territory in the Golan Heights. In 1979, Syria voted with other Arab states to expel Egypt from the Arab League. Tags Yom Kippur War - Wikispooks Yom Kippur War Egyptian forces crossing the Suez Canal on 7 October 1973 Date 6 October 1973 - 25 October 1973 Perpetrators Egypt , Syria Description A Bilderberg approved war in the Middle East to provide probable cause to increased the oil price, allowing US oil companies to cash in big time. The Yom Kippur War or October War was fought by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria ( Soviet proxies ) against Israel , the US client state, from 6 to 25 October 1973.

Military action during the war took place mainly in the Sinai and the Golan Heights , territories that were occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War . Egypt wanted to regain the Sinai and to reopen the Suez Canal whilst Syria aimed to retake the Golan Heights. At the time of the Yom Kippur War, Richard Nixon was US president , Leonid Brezhnev was the Soviet leader , Israel was led by Prime Minister Golda Meir , Egypt by President Anwar Sadat and Syria by President Hafez al-Assad . [1] Contents 8 References Official narrative The war began when the Arab coalition launched a joint surprise attack on Israeli positions in the Israeli-occupied territories on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of prayer and fasting in the Jewish calendar, which also occurred that year during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan . Egyptian and Syrian forces crossed ceasefire lines to enter the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights respectively, areas which Israel had captured six years earlier in the Six-Day War . Both the United States and the Soviet Union were surprised, and initiated massive resupply efforts to their respective allies during the war, and this led to a near-confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers.

[2] Concerns The Yom Kippur War occurred after the 1973 Bilderberg meeting which discussed a large increase in oil prices. It resulted in a large increase in oil prices. A causal connection is therefore a real possibility. Bichler, Rowley and Nitzan come to this conclusion, stating that "Middle Eastern wars were the instrument of oil crises" (rather than their cause) in order to secure huge petrodollar profits in a power-grab. [3] Outnumbered The combined forces of Egypt and Syria totalled the same number of men as NATO had in Western Europe. On the Golan Heights alone, 150 Israeli tanks faced 1,400 Syrian tanks and in the Suez region just 500 Israeli soldiers confronted 80,000 Egyptian soldiers. Other Arab nations aided the Egyptians and Syrians. Iraq transferred a squadron of Hunter jet fighter planes to Egypt a few months before the war began. Iraqi Soviet -built MIG fighters were used against the Israelis in the Golan Heights along with 18,000 Iraqi soldiers. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait effectively financed the war from the Arab side.

Saudi troops – approximately 3,000 men – also fought in the war. Libya provided Egypt with French-built Mirage fighters and, in the years 1971 to 1973, had bankrolled Egypt’s military modernisation to the tune of $1 billion which was used to purchase modern Soviet weapons. Other Arab nations that helped the Egyptians and Syrians included Tunisia , Sudan and Morocco . Jordan also sent two armoured brigades and three artillery units to support the Syrians, but their participation in the war was not done with vast enthusiasm – probably because King Hussein of Jordan had not been kept informed of what Egypt and Syria planned. Within two days, the Egyptians had crossed the Suez Canal and moved up to 15 miles inland of the most advanced Israeli troops in the Sinai. Syrian troops advanced by the same distance into the strategic Golan Heights in North Israel. By the end of 7 October 1973, the military signs were looking ominous for Israel. After three days, Israel had mobilised most of its forces and halted the Egyptian offensive, resulting in a military stalemate. The Syrians coordinated their attack on the Golan Heights to coincide with the Egyptian offensive and initially made threatening gains into Israeli-held territory.

Within three days, however, Israeli forces had pushed the Syrians back to the pre-war ceasefire lines. Counter-offensive The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) then launched a counter-offensive deep into Syria. Using the main road from Tiberias to Damascus, the Israelis got to within 35 miles of the Syrian capital and began shelling the outskirts of Damascus . President Sadat was concerned about the integrity of Egypt's major ally, and believed that capturing two strategic mountain passes located deeper in the Sinai would make his position stronger during post-war negotiations. He therefore ordered the Egyptians to go back on the offensive, but their attack was quickly repulsed. The IDF pushed back the Egyptian military and crossed the Suez Canal south of Ismailia , using the Suez-Cairo road to advance towards the Egyptian capital, and got to within 65 miles of Cairo . [4] [5] Cease-fire On 22 October 1973 a United Nations –brokered cease-fire quickly unravelled, with each side blaming the other for the breach.

[6] Within days, the IDF had improved its position considerably by completing the encirclement of Egypt's Third Army and the city of Suez, a development that led to tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. On 23 October 1973, a second cease-fire was organised by the United Nations . [7] The UN Security Council quickly established the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) to keep the peace in the regions affected by the fighting, thus bringing the war to an end on 25 October 1973. [8] In the following months, Israeli and Egyptian forces disengaged along the Suez Canal region. Here, the IDF managed to keep control over the strategic Sinai Desert – an area serving as a buffer to ensure any further fighting there did not spill over into Israel itself. In June 1974, some 1,250 UN peacekeeping troops were deployed in the Golan Heights to monitor the ceasefire between Israel and Syria. [9] Four decades later and without an Israel-Syria peace agreement, the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) remains in the Golan Heights.

[10] Ramifications The Yom Kippur War had far-reaching implications. The Arab World, which had experienced humiliation in the lopsided rout of the Egyptian–Syrian–Jordanian alliance in the 1967 Six-Day War , felt psychologically vindicated by early successes in the conflict. In Israel, despite impressive operational and tactical achievements on the battlefield, the war led to recognition that there was no guarantee that Israel would always dominate the Arab states militarily. US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger , acted as a peace broker between Egypt and Israel who, in September 1975, signed an interim agreement which declared their willingness to settle their differences by peaceful means rather than by military. The 1978 Camp David Accords that followed the 1977 ‘Sadat Initiative’ led to the return of the Sinai to Egypt and normalised relations — the first peaceful recognition of Israel by an Arab country. Egypt continued its drift away from the Soviet Union and left the Soviet sphere of influence entirely. Egypt's President Sadat , having adopted the mantle of the former president Colonel Nasser in confronting Israel and the West, was seen by many Arabs to have betrayed them by adopting a diplomatic approach to solving the region’s problems.

He was assassinated in 1981, a killing which the official narrative attributes to " Muslim fundamentalists ". See also The Yom Kippur War of 1973 - History Learning Site The Yom Kippur War of 1973 Citation: C N Trueman "The Yom Kippur War of 1973" historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 26 May 2015. 16 Aug 2016. The Yom Kippur War of 1973, the most recent ‘full’ war in Middle East history , is so-called because it began on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), the holiest day of prayer and fasting in the Jewish calendar. The Yom Kippur War is also known as the October War. At the time of Yom Kippur, Israel was led by Golda Meir and Egypt by Anwar Sadat . The Yom Kippur War started with a surprise Arab attack on Israel on Saturday 6th October 1973.

On this day, Egyptian and Syrian military forces launched an attack knowing that the military of Israel would be participating in the religious celebrations associated with Yom Kippur. Therefore, their guard would temporarily be dropped. The combined forces of Egypt and Syria totalled the same number of men as NATO had in Western Europe. On the Golan Heights alone, 150 Israeli tanks faced 1,400 Syria tanks and in the Suez region just 500 Israeli soldiers faced 80,000 Egyptian soldiers. Other Arab nations aided the Egyptians and Syrians. Iraq transferred a squadron of Hunter jet fighter planes to Egypt a few months before the war began. Iraqi Russian-built MIG fighters were used against the Israelis in the Golan Heights along with 18,000 Iraqi soldiers. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait effectively financed the war from the Arabs side. Saudi troops – approximately 3,000 men – also fought in the war. Libya provided Egypt with French-built Mirage fighters and in the years 1971 to 1973, Libya bankrolled Egypt’s military modernisation to the tune of $1 billion which was used to purchase modern Russian weapons.

Other Arabic nations that helped the Egyptians and Syrians included Tunisia, Sudan and Morocco. Jordan also sent two armoured brigades and three artillery units to support the Syrians, but their participation in the war was not done with vast enthusiasm – probably because King Hussein of Jordan had not been kept informed of what Egypt and Syria planned. Facing such an attack, the Israeli forces were initially swiftly overwhelmed. Within two days, the Egyptians had crossed the Suez Canal and moved up to 15 miles inland of the most advanced Israeli troops in the Sinai. Syrian troops advanced by the same distance into the strategic Golan Heights in north Israel. By the end of October 7th, the military signs were ominous for Israel. However, on October 8th, Israeli forces, bolstered by called-up reserves, counter-attacked in the Sinai. They pushed back the Egyptian military and crossed the Suez Canal south of Ismailia. Here, the Israelis used the Suez-Cairo road to advance towards the Egyptian capital, Cairo, and got to within 65 miles of it. The Israelis experienced similar success in the Golan Heights where the Syrian forces were pushed back and Israel re-captured lost land.

Using the main road from Tiberias to Damascus, the Israelis got to within 35 miles of the Syrian capital. On October 24th, a cease-fire was organised by the United Nations . The United Nations sent its own peacekeepers to the highly volatile regions affected by the fighting. Between January and March 1974, Israeli and Egyptian forces disengaged along the Suez Canal region. Here, the Israelis managed to keep control over the strategic Sinai Desert – an area that allowed Israel a buffer to ensure any fighting there did not spill over into Israel itself. In the Golan Heights, 1,200 United Nations troops were sent to keep the peace there in May 1974. They effectively formed a United Nations buffer between Syria and Israel. The American Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissenger, acted as a peace broker between Egypt and Israel. In September 1975, Egypt and Israel signed an interim agreement which declared their willingness to settle their differences by peaceful means rather than by military. This was to lead to the American sponsored talks at Camp David that followed the 1977 ‘ Sadat Initiative ’.

To some Arabs, Anwar Sadat , leader of Egypt, seemed to have betrayed their cause and it was to cost him his life when he was assassinated by Muslim fundamentalists in 1981. In October 1973, Sadat had adopted a warlike approach to Arab relations with Israel – he was seen by many Arabs to be the spiritual successor to Nasser and the saviour to the Palestinians in Israel. His adoption of a diplomatic approach to solving the region’s problems was too much for some Arabs. The United Nations had played a muted part in the whole war. At the moment of the war, the United Nations was in a difficult position as its Secretary-General, Kurt Waldheim, had been implicated in war crimes in the Balkans during World War Two. Such an association did little to enhance the reputation of the United Nations. What did Israel get out of the Yom Kippur War? Despite the initial successes of the Egyptian and Syrian forces, the war proved once again how effective the Israeli military could be. After the initial set-backs, the war served as a huge morale boost to Israelis.

Despite a co-ordinated attack on two fronts, Israel had survived and had pushed back the nations that had initially broken through Israel’s defences. Though the Americans provided the Israeli military with weaponry, they also provided Israel with something far more important – intelligence. Documents relating to the American spy-plane, the ‘SR-71 Blackbird’, show that the Israelis knew where major concentrations of Arab forces were as they were supplied with this information as a result of a SR-71 flying over the war zone. With such knowledge, the Israelis knew where to deploy their forces for maximum effect. What appeared to be intuitive devastating counter-attacks by the Israelis, were based on very detailed information gained from American intelligence. Basically, the Israelis knew where their enemy was and could co-ordinate an attack accordingly. The war also served as a salutary lesson to the Arab nations that surrounded Israel in that initial victories had to be built on. The failure of the Egyptian and Syrian forces to defeat Israel pushed Sadat towards adopting a diplomatic approach. It also encouraged some Palestinians to more extreme actions. On the diplomatic front, the Camp David talks took place while the actions of the PLO became more violent. Why didn’t the Arab nations build on their initial successes?

Clearly, the use of intelligence massively benefited the Israelis. However, as in 1948 , the Arab nations did not fight as one unit. Their command structure was not unified and each fighting unit (in the Sinai and the Golan Heights) acted as individual units. With up to nine different nationalities involved on the Arab side, mere co-ordination would have been extremely difficult. Secondly, the Israelis had to work to one simple equation: if they lost, the state of Israel would cease to exist. Therefore, for Israel it was a fight to the finish – literally “death or glory”. If the various Arab nations lost, they could survive for another day. Background & Overview - Yom Kippur War | Jewish Virtual Library Background & Overview Tweet After the exhilaration of the victory in the Six-Day War in 1967, Israelis became increasingly dispirited. The growing level of terrorism , combined with increasingly ominous threats from Egypt , made peace seem further away than ever. Rather than reconciling themselves to Israel’s existence, the Arab states looked for a way to avenge the humiliation of their defeat. The Soviet Union was doing its share to stoke the flames of war by pouring arms into the region.

And the Arab states in the Persian Gulf were beginning to take greater control of their oil resources and use the revenues to flex their political muscle. - Egypt Saves Face Sadat Cries Wolf In 1971, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat raised the possibility of signing an agreement with Israel , provided that all the territories captured by the Israelis were returned. Later, many people would claim Israel missed an opportunity to avoid war, but the truth was that Sadat expected Israel to ignore the threats that led to the 1967 War and to capitulate to Egyptian demands without any guarantee of peace. The suggestion was a nonstarter from Israel's point of view. Moreover, Sadat could not negotiate an agreement until Egypt erased the shame of 1967. For all the talk of peace, though, it was still violence that grabbed the headlines. During the summer of 1972, Palestinian terrorists infiltrated the Munich Olympics and murdered 11 Israeli athletes. With no progress toward peace, Sadat began to say that war was inevitable and that he was prepared to sacrifice one million soldiers in the showdown with Israel.

Throughout 1972 and for much of 1973, Sadat threatened war unless the United States forced Israel to accept his interpretation of Resolution 242 — total Israeli withdrawal from territories taken in 1967. Simultaneously, Sadat appealed to the Soviets to bring pressure on the United States and to provide Egypt with more offensive weapons. The Soviet Union was more interested in maintaining the appearance of détente with the United States than a confrontation in the Middle East; therefore, it rejected Sadat’s demands. Sadat’s response was to abruptly expel approximately 20,000 Soviet advisers from Egypt. In an April 1973 interview, Sadat again warned that he would renew the war with Israel. But it was the same threat he had made in 1971 and 1972, and most observers remained skeptical. In fact, almost up to the start of the shooting, no one expected a war. “The news of the imminent attack on Israel took us completely by surprise,” President Nixon said later. “As recently as the day before, the CIA had reported that war in the Middle East was unlikely.” Had U.S.

intelligence realized at the beginning of October 1973 that the Arabs were about to attack, Nixon might have been able to prevent the war through diplomacy or threats. Golda’s Fateful Decision Despite the conventional wisdom that Israel was surprised by the attack that did eventually come, the truth is the Israelis began to prepare for battle on October 5 and were convinced war was imminent the following morning. But, like U.S. intelligence officials, Israeli analysts were skeptical about the threat of war. According to documents declassified in 2012, the failure to anticipate the Arab attacks was a result of a number of intelligence failures. For example, Israeli soldiers on the southern front were given a secret document that provided 14 signals that would indicate an Egyptian attack was forthcoming. None of those indicators were apparent before the invastion. Similarly, in the north, a warning was passed on to the commander that Syria planned to attack on October 2. That intelligence could not be confirmed and was dismissed. On October 4, a day before learning that Russian civilians were leaving Egypt and Syria, Military Intelligence reported the chances for war were low.

Israel had a spy in Egypt;h however, Ashraf Marwan, ** the son-in-law of ex-president Gamal Abdel Nasser , who passed on a warning to his Mossad handler in London that war was imminent a day-and-a-half before it started. The Mossad director, Zvi Zamir, was informed by his aide and planned to meet with his agent in London the next day. Zamir subsequently learned from Israeli Military Intelligence that Soviet scientists were preparing to leave Syria, which added weight to the report of pending war. Two weeks earlier, Israel learned that Russia was transferring Scud missiles to Egypt; another worrisome sign. According to Zamir's aide, Alfred Eini, Marwan's warning of impending war was not passed on to the Prime Minister immediately because the Mossad thought it would be done by Military Intelligence. Zamir did not reach someone in the prime minister's office until a day later, hours before the attack. It was not until 5 a.m. on October 6 that General David Elazar , the chief of staff, first recommended a full, immediate mobilization of forces and a preemptive air strike. He was overruled.

A few hours later, a partial call-up of reserves was approved, but Prime Minister Golda Meir still refused to authorize Elazar to take military action. She advised the U.S. ambassador of the situation and asked him to pass on the message that the Arabs should be restrained. Henry Kissinger , who now was secretary of state, subsequently appealed to Sadat and Syrian president Hafez Assad not to do anything precipitously. He also cautioned Meir not to shoot first. Meir found herself in a nearly impossible position. The intelligence community had not given her sufficient warning of the impending attack to adequately prepare the nation for war. Still, Israel’s chances for victory and minimizing casualties could be greatly enhanced by a preemptive strike and the rapid mobilization of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces). However, she feared that striking first, as Israel had done in 1967, might so anger the United States that Nixon would not support Israel’s prosecution of the war or policies afterward. And, unlike 1967, she did not feel Israel could afford to go it alone.

Unholy War On October 6, 1973 — Yom Kippur , the holiest day in the Jewish calendar (and during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan) — Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise attack against Israel. The equivalent of the total forces of NATO in Europe was mobilized on Israel’s borders. On the Golan Heights , approximately 180 Israeli tanks faced an onslaught of 1,400 Syrian tanks. Along the Suez Canal, fewer than 500 Israeli defenders with only 3 tanks were attacked by 600,000 Egyptian soldiers, backed by 2,000 tanks and 550 aircraft. At least nine Arab states, including four non–Middle Eastern nations ( Libya , Sudan , Algeria , and Morocco ), actively aided the Egyptian-Syrian war effort. A few months before the attack, Iraq transferred a squadron of Hunter jets to Egypt. During the war, an Iraqi division of some 18,000 men and several hundred tanks was deployed in the central Golan and participated in the October 16 attack against Israeli positions.

Iraqi MiGs began operating over the Golan Heights as early as October 8 — the third day of the war. Besides serving as financial underwriters, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait committed men to battle. A Saudi brigade of approximately 3,000 troops was dispatched to Syria, where it participated in fighting along the approaches to Damascus. Also violating Paris’s ban on the transfer of French-made weapons, Libya sent Mirage fighters to Egypt. Other North African countries responded to Arab and Soviet calls to aid the front-line states. Algeria sent three aircraft squadrons of fighters and bombers, an armored brigade, and 150 tanks. Approximately 1,000 to 2,000 Tunisian soldiers were positioned in the Nile Delta. Sudan stationed 3,500 troops in southern Egypt, and Morocco sent three brigades to the front lines, including 2,500 men to Syria. Lebanese radar units were used by Syrian air defense forces. Lebanon also allowed Palestinian terrorists to shell Israeli civilian settlements from its territory. Palestinians fought on the Southern Front with the Egyptians and Kuwaitis.

In September 2013 shamed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak claimed that he personally started the Yom Kippur war during a secret mission during his time as an Egyptian air force commander. Mubarak stated that six munites before the large attack on Israel commenced including other Arab armies, he attacked an Israeli communications outpost in his fighter jet in the first attack of the war. Hussein Doesn’t Repeat His Mistake Jordan’s King Hussein , who apparently hadn’t been informed of Egyptian and Syrian war plans, chose not to fight this round, correctly calculating that his forces were vastly inferior to the Israelis’. Hussein’s decision was crucial to Israel’s defense because it freed up forces that would otherwise have had to fight on a third front. Still, Arab brotherhood required that Hussein contribute to the cause, so he sent two of his best units to Syria. Three Jordanian artillery batteries also participated in the assault, carried out by nearly 100 tanks. Oil Becomes a Weapon During the October war, the Arab oil-producing states imposed an embargo on oil exports to the United States , Portugal , and Holland because of their support for Israel.

The impact was to cause a shortage of petroleum in the United States and a quadrupling of gas prices. Americans soon had to contend with long lines at gas stations. Several U.S. oil companies that got most of their petroleum supplies from the Middle East, and depended on the goodwill of the Arab states to maintain their business relations in the region collaborated, in the embargo against their own nation. Oil company executives lobbied the Nixon administratio n to offer more support to the Arabs and less to Israel. They, along with state department Arabists, hoped to convince the public that Israel was to blame for the United States’s economic hardships and that it was far more important for the United States to ally itself with the Arab states than with Israel. The oil embargo was lifted in March 1974, but the United States and other Western nations continued to feel its effects for years to come. The IDF Stages a Comeback Thrown onto the defensive during the first two days of fighting, Israel mobilized its reserves and began to counterattack. In the south, Israeli forces were having little success in stopping the Egyptian onslaught. Still, the Sinai Desert offered a large buffer zone between the fighting and the heart of Israel.

The situation was different in the north, where the Syrians had swept across the Golan and could, in short order, threaten Israel’s population centers. Consequently, most reserves meant for the Egyptian front were shifted to the Golan. The replenished Israeli forces stopped the Syrian advance, forced a retreat, and began their own march forward toward Damascus. Superpower Chess The Soviets gave their wholehearted political support to the Arab invasion. Starting as early as October 9, they also began a massive airlift of weapons, which ultimately totaled 8,000 tons of materiel. The United States had given Israel some ammunition and spare parts, but it resisted Israeli requests for greater assistance. As the Soviets continued to pour weapons into the region, Kissinger decided that the United States could not afford to allow the Soviet Union’s allies to win the war. The secretary of state wanted to show the Arabs they could never defeat Israel with the backing of the Soviets. He also couldn’t afford to let U.S. adversaries win a victory over a U.S. ally. By sending arms to Israel, the United States could ensure an Israeli victory, hand the Soviets a defeat, and provide Washington with the leverage to influence a postwar settlement.

On October 12, Nixon ordered an emergency airlift to Israel. Cargo planes carrying spare parts, tanks, bombs, and helicopters flew round-the-clock to Israel. The resupply efforts were hampered by America’s NATO allies who, capitulating to Arab threats, refused to allow American planes to use their air space. The one exception was Portugal, which as a consequence became the base for the operation. Between October 14 and November 14, 1973, 22,000 tons of equipment were transported to Israel by air and sea. The airlift alone involved 566 flights. To pay for this infusion of weapons, Nixon asked Congress for and received $2.2 billion in emergency aid for Israel. The View from Egypt In the greatest tank battle since the Germans and Russians fought at Kursk in World War II , roughly 1,000 Israeli and Egyptian tanks massed in the western Sinai from October 12 through 14. On October 14, Israeli forces destroyed 250 Egyptian tanks in the first 2 hours of fighting. By late afternoon, the Israeli forces had routed the enemy.

Meanwhile, Israeli General Ariel Sharon had been chomping at the bit to cross the Suez Canal but had been ordered not to do so until after the main Egyptian force had been defeated in the Sinai. With that mission accomplished, Israeli paratroopers snuck across the canal and established a bridgehead. By October 18, Israeli forces were marching with little opposition toward Cairo. For the Israelis, the crossing was a great psychological boost; for the Egyptians, it was a humiliation. About the same time, Israeli troops were on the outskirts of Damascus, easily within artillery range of the Syrian capital. Prime Minister Meir did not want to attack Damascus, so the IDF stopped its advance and focused its activities on recapturing Mount Hermon — the highest peak in the region and a key Israeli radar and observation post that had fallen to the Syrians early in the fighting. On October 22, Israel once again controlled the Golan Heights. Meanwhile, the air battles were one-sided. Israel lost 114 planes during the war — only 20 in aerial combat. Israeli pilots shot down at least 450 Arab aircraft in dogfights. The Brink of Nuclear War As Israeli troops began to advance on Damascus, the Soviets started to panic.

On October 12, the Soviet ambassador informed Kissinger that his government was placing troops on alert to defend Damascus. The situation grew even more tense over the next two weeks, as Israeli forces reversed the initial Egyptian gains in the Sinai and began to threaten Cairo. The Egyptian Third Army was surrounded, and Israel would not allow the Red Cross to bring in supplies. At this point, Sadat began to seek Soviet help in pressing Israel to accept a cease-fire. On October 24, the Soviets threatened to intervene in the fighting. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reported that the Soviet airlift to Egypt had stopped and that it was possible the planes were being prepared to change the cargo from weapons to troops. Responding to the Soviet threat, Nixon put the U.S. military on alert, increasing its readiness for the deployment of conventional and nuclear forces. The United States was in the midst of the political upheaval of the Watergate scandal, and some people believed Nixon was trying to divert attention from his political problems at home, but the danger of a U.S.–Soviet conflict was real.

In fact, this was probably the closest the superpowers ever came to a nuclear war other than the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Fortunately, the Soviets backed down and never sent troops to fight. Saving the Losers The Soviet Union showed no interest in initiating peacemaking efforts, so long as it looked like the Arabs might win. The same was true for UN secretary-general Kurt Waldheim. After the situation on the battlefield changed in Israel’s favor, however, desperate calls were made for the fighting to end. On October 22, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 338 calling for “all parties to the present fighting to cease all firing and terminate all military activity immediately.” The resolution also called for the implementation of Resolution 242 . The vote came on the day that Israeli forces cut off and isolated the Egyptian Third Army and were in a position to destroy it. Israel reluctantly complied with the cease-fire, largely because of U.S. pressure, but also because the next military moves would have been to attack the two Arab capitals, something few believed would be politically wise. By the end of the fighting, 2,688 Israeli soldiers had been killed.

Combat deaths for Egypt and Syria totaled 7,700 and 3,500, respectively. Disengagement Lays Groundwork For Peace Ironically, the United States had helped save Israel by its resupply effort[md]and then rescued Egypt by forcing Israel to accept the cease-fire. Henry Kissinger had used U.S. power and diplomacy to try to bring about a war result that would allow Egyptians to erase the stain of 1967 without allowing them to win or Israel to humiliate them again. In January 1974, Israel and Egypt negotiated a disengagement agreement ( Sinai I ) thanks to Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy — so named because he flew back and forth between the two countries with American suggestions, as well as offers and counteroffers from the two governments. The Sinai I accord allowed the Egyptians to retain control of the Suez Canal, freed the Third Army, and drew a cease-fire line on the east side of the canal, with a buffer zone between the two forces. A second disengagement agreement ( Sinai II ) was signed in September 1975, which called for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from two strategic passes in the Sinai and some surrounding territory.

The Egyptians were not allowed back into this neutral zone. Instead, U.S. peacekeepers were deployed to monitor the area. Syria Fronts for the Rejectionists The negotiations with the Syrians were more tortuous. It was not until May 1974 that a separation of forces agreement was signed that created a UN–policed buffer zone, a reduction in troop deployment, and the return of the town of Kuneitra to Syria . And that came only after a renewal of fighting in March. Syria fired artillery at Israeli positions between March and May, during which 37 more Israeli soldiers were killed. The United States rewarded Syria for the agreement with a modest grant of financial assistance[md]the first in 30 years — in hopes of building a new relationship with the regime of Hafez Assad and encouraging him to negotiate a peace agreement. As Nixon’s successors would also discover, Assad was happy to take whatever the United States was willing to offer, but he gave nothing in return. Rather than join the peace process, Assad became one of the leaders of the Rejectionist Front . Assad was also determined to impede Israeli-Egyptian negotiations.

He feared that an agreement between them would reduce Egypt’s willingness to fight for the Arab cause and that Sadat would accept a separate deal with Israel that would not address Syrian grievances. Israel’s Political Earthquake The fact that the Arabs had succeeded in surprising the IDF and inflicting heavy losses in the early part of the war against the supposedly invincible Israeli army was a traumatic experience for Israel. Its government reacted to the public’s calls for an inquiry by establishing a commission chaired by Shimon Agranat, the president of Israel’s Supreme Court. The Agranat Commission concluded that Israeli intelligence had sufficient warning of the impending attack, but, for a variety of reasons, had failed to interpret the in-formation correctly. Chief of Staff Elazar bore the brunt of the commission’s blame and resigned. The commission did not assess the role of Prime Minister Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan , but the public viewed them as the officials who were actually responsible for the mistakes that were made. The public was angered by what many viewed as scapegoating career military officials for the mistakes of their political leaders. This outrage ultimately led Meir to resign. Dayan would have been the logical heir, but his reputation was now in tatters.

The alternatives of the dominant Labor Party for a successor came down to a choice between two very different men. One, Minister of Information Shimon Peres , was a popular nonmilitary man who had played a key role in building the nation’s military might through his diplomatic skills. The other was Yitzhak Rabin , a native-born Israeli and military leader from the days of the Haganah , who had served as chief of staff during the Six-Day War and later as ambassador to Washington . In a tight election that fueled a 20-year political rivalry, Rabin was chosen to be prime minister . Egypt Saves Face Although Egypt lost the war, with Israeli troops prepared to march on Cairo and the Third Army saved by the United States from annihilation, Egyptians saw the battle as a victory for them. They had surprised the arrogant Israelis and nearly defeated them. If not for U.S. support, many believed, they would have driven the Jews into the sea. Sadat did not seem to have that as his objective. It was more important for him to erase the humiliation of 1967.

As Egyptian chief of staff Sa’ad Shazli, said on October 8, 1973, “The war has retrieved Arab honor.” This psychological shift was critical to Sadat's ability to enter negotiations later to reach a peace agreement with Israel . Sources: Mitchell G. Bard, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict. 4th Edition. NY: Alpha Books, 2008; Roi Mandel, “Declassified documents reveal failures of Yom Kippur War,” Ynetnews.com, (September 25, 2012); Yaakov Lappin, “Declassified Yom Kippur papers reveal failures,” Jerusalem Post, (September 21, 2012) *In the United States, the October 1973 war is typically referred to as the Yom Kippur War. Because the war was fought during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Arabs and Muslims refer to it as the Ramadan War. **An intelligence controversy exists over whether Marwan was a double agent. We will never know; Marwan fell to his death under mysterious circumstances in 2007.

***Ironically, Sadat was assassinated during a parade in Cairo in 1981 celebrating Egypt's “victory” in 1973. A Yom Kippur battle through the lens of the US Civil War | The Times of Israel Israel & the Region A Yom Kippur battle through the lens of the US Civil War In new book ‘From Gettysburg to Golan,’ a former IDF officer finds the parallels between Israeli and Union tactics in the 1973 war and the American conflict Judah Ari Gross Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's military correspondent. Follow or contact: Reconstructionists time Yom Kippur service for papal visit As they faced down hundreds of Syrian tanks barreling toward the Golan Heights, the similarities between their fight and the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War was probably the last thing IDF soldiers had on their minds during the Yom Kippur War. Yet the parallels exist. The differences between the two battles are obvious: the time period, the location, the scale of the fighting, the weapons used. One was an internal struggle for control, while the other was an invasion attempt by foreign countries.

The Battle of Gettysburg had close to 45,000 Rebel and Union casualties, while just a tiny fraction of that number perished on the Golan Heights in 1973. Though Israeli casualties were well documented, Syria does not have exact figures for the battle, but most experts put the figure in the hundreds to low thousands. The Civil War lasted just over four years; the Yom Kippur War was over in less than three weeks. But the connection is there, for those who wish to find it. Barry Spielman, a retired IDF lieutenant colonel and Civil War buff, lays out the similarities between these two famous battles in his book, “From Gettysburg to Golan,” published earlier this month. Spielman’s 95-page book is technically a Kindle Single, a newly christened digital format that occupies a niche somewhere between a full-length book and an article, and is available for download through Amazon. Cover of ‘From Gettysburg to Golan.’ (Courtesy of Barry Spielman) The book jumps back and forth between the two battles as they progress, with Spielman peppering dry, tactical information on the battles with first-hand accounts.

In both cases, Spielman explains, there was a defending army in a superior position on higher ground, surprised by an overwhelming attack from below. In Gettysburg and on the Golan, the defending army knew that if they were overrun, the consequences could be dire. For the South, a victory in Gettysburg would pave the way for an invasion of the North. For Syria, a victory on the Golan would be both a victory in itself, as it would reclaim land it had lost in the 1967 Six Day War, and would provide the Syrian Army an ingress with which they could effectively cut Israel in two. Bayonets in Gettysburg, tanks on the Golan On July 2, 1863, the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade discovered that a Confederate attack was imminent. Meanwhile, another general, Dan Sickles, had either disobeyed or deliberately misunderstood Meade’s orders and abandoned his position on Little Round Top, two rocky hills south of the city of Gettysburg, and moved to an indefensible position in a peach orchard nearby.

Scrambling as the Southern offensive began, Meade called for reinforcements to hold Little Round Top and the high ground, which, according to Spielman, would be the deciding factor in the battle — and ultimately the war. Map of the Battle of Gettysburg in ‘From Gettysburg to Golan.’ (Courtesy of Barry Spielman) The battle was fought with bayonets, rifles and artillery, and though Rebel troops managed to overcome the Northern army in some skirmishes, by the end of the day the Union was able to effectively move troops into the areas where the South had previously broken through, and the line held. October 6, 1973, was the Yom Kippur holiday, the holiest day in the Jewish year. That afternoon, Syria and Egypt launched a surprise assault on Israel to reclaim the land both had lost in the Six Day War and potentially take over Israel entirely. Israel had been maintaining permanent defense positions in the Golan Heights, a mountainous region in northern Israel, and had created a 20-mile (30-kilometer) anti-tank trench.

Against the Syrian Army’s full-scale assault, however, these positions were inadequate and reinforcements would be needed in order for Israel to maintain its control over the Golan Heights. It was a race against the clock, Spielman explained. Map of the Golan Heights campaign in the Yom Kippur War in ‘From Gettysburg to Golan.’ (Courtesy of Barry Spielman) Avigdor Kahalani, a lieutenant colonel in charge of the 77th tank battalion, is considered the hero of the Golan Heights campaign — leading charge after charge against the advancing army and directing tanks to replace those destroyed by the Syrians in order to hold the Golan Heights. Despite great uncertainty at the outbreak of the war as to whether Israel would be able to hold off the Syrian Army, by the end of October 9, just a few dozen Israeli tanks had been lost, while Kahalani’s force and the rest of the mechanized 7th Brigade managed to destroy hundreds of Syrian tanks and armored personnel carriers.

The location of these tank battles on the Golan Heights is known now in Hebrew as Emek HaBacha — the Valley of Tears — for the viciousness of the fighting that took place there during the Yom Kippur War. In their respective battles, Spielman wrote, and despite rocky starts, the North and the Israelis were victorious through their use of so-called interior lines, a strategic concept that says the more concentrated a force, the easier it is to move resources. Clustered on hilltops, the Israeli and Union troops were able to quickly fill in the holes in their fighting lines, preventing their enemies from breaking through. It all started with a blog Although the book was written only this year, the inspiration for it came from Spielman’s time in the army in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when he served as a member of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, in the department that handles the army’s relationship with the public directly, as opposed to through the media. “I was in charge of all visits by civilians to army bases and installations,” Spielman told The Times of Israel. “I used to take folks up, a lot, to the Golan Heights, to the Valley of Tears.

“From the beginning, from the first time that I was there, I was always struck by the connection,” he said. But perhaps the inspiration for the book came even before that. Since his childhood in New York, Spielman has been enthralled by the American Civil War, and Gettysburg in particular. ‘What if we compare Gettysburg to the battle in the Golan Heights?’ Spielman “can’t even count” the number of times he has visited the battle site, he said with a laugh. And to conduct his research for the book, he rarely had to venture outside his front door. “More than 90 percent of the books I used were from my library, my personal library,” he explained. One of Spielman’s friends in Australia had recently started a publishing company for history books, and Spielman — an amateur Civil War historian with a master’s degree in national security studies from George Washington University — desperately wanted to write something about Gettysburg. The topic, however, was not a new one: thousands of books have been written on the three-day battle.

So Spielman thought back to his days in the army and to a 2013 blog post he had written on The Times of Israel website . “Sort of in desperation, I said to [my publisher], ‘What if we compare Gettysburg to the battle in the Golan Heights?’” he said. “He said, ‘Well that’s interesting. Nobody’s ever written anything about that before,’ Spielman said. “It’s a little bit of a stretch,” he admitted, “A hundred years between them. One is tanks, one is infantry.” But Amazon “loved the idea,” his publisher told Spielman. Writing about the Civil War and military history is today just a hobby for Spielman, who works full time as director of marketing operations for AudioCodes, an Israeli start-up. Beginning in December 2014, it took Spielman approximately six months to write the book in his spare time and then another two or three to edit and create the book’s maps and cover. “The coolest part for me was being able to interview these veterans from the Yom Kippur War,” he said.

“The book was just icing on the cake.” Author Barry Spielman (center) meets with Avigdor Kahalani (left), former 77th Battalion commander, and Eitan Kauli, deputy commander of the 77th Battalion. (Courtesy of Barry Spielman) By the end of the day, Spielman said, “I had talked to ten people who had fought in the Golan, serious people.” These “serious people” included Avigdor Kahalani, the hero of the battle who won a medal of valor for his effort, and Kahalani’s deputy, Eitan Kauli. Spielman also managed to speak with Aviram Barkai, the author of the Hebrew book “Al Blima ” (in English, “On Containment”) which is the term used for the Israeli strategy during the fight in the Golan. “Al Blima,” a dense, 550-page account of the battle, is one of the most well-regarded and well-written books on the Golan campaign and is frequently distributed by the IDF to officers.

‘Some things don’t change’ The strategic similarities between the Golan Heights tank battle in the Yom Kippur War and the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War are likely also shared with dozens or hundreds of other skirmishes throughout humanity’s millennia of conflict. It is not a unique occurrence for someone to find a parallel between two historic events. So what is the takeaway from Spielman’s book? What does it matter that Avigdor Kahalani and George Meade fought tactically similar wars? For Spielman, the similarities forge a connection between the two countries’ histories. “In an abstract way,” he said, “it connects US history to Israeli history.” Spielman grew up in America, but has lived in Israel “off and on” since 1981. During his service in the IDF, Spielman brought Americans to the Israeli Golan Heights and now, working with a large Israeli company, he has been able to bring his Israeli bosses to Gettysburg.

Though he left the army in 1995, Spielman still serves in the reserves and is regularly “involved in joint exercises with the IDF and the US Army.” So the connection between the Golan and Gettysburg is more than just an academic interest, it is one close to Spielman’s heart. ‘Even though battles change, tactics change, certain things don’t change’ His book also reinforces the age-old lesson that there is nothing new under the sun. “Even though battles change, tactics change,” Spielman explained, “certain things don’t change.” Despite the wildly different technologies at play in the two wars, he said, the higher ground was still crucial and remains so even today. “Holding on to certain land that has a strategic value is still important,” he said. Though earlier this summer we commemorated the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War and on Wednesday Israel will commemorate 42 years since the Yom Kippur War, both events are still equally relevant, Spielman said. “In Israel we live with Yom Kippur every day,” he said.

And even though more than a century and a half has passed since Gettysburg, the politics of the event still influenced Spielman’s book. Around the time he was finishing his book, 21-year-old Dylann Roof charged into a black church in South Carolina and murdered nine people. The shooting renewed a debate over the use of the Confederate flag in the southern United States. Out of sensitivity and to avoid appearing sympathetic to the Confederacy, Spielman altered a sentence that spoke of the bravery that both sides portrayed in the battle. “It’s still so charged,” he said. “It’s still happening, it’s not over.” | Politics , US & Canada , Egypt , Iraq , Israel An Israeli armoured column on its way into Syria during the October War between Israel and Egypt and Syria [Getty Images] Shortly after midnight on October 5, 1973, the telephone rang in the London home of Dubi Asherov, an Israeli case officer handling an Egyptian spy referred to as ‘The Source’.

It was ‘The Source’ and his message was simple: “I need to meet the boss, urgently.” Asherov called Tel Aviv to wake his superior, Zvi Zamir, the director of Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad. Within just a few hours, Zamir was on his way to the British capital, where he met ‘The Source’ in a Mossad safe house. The information he heard there was astonishing – but what made it all the more important was the identity of the man delivering it. “Ashraf Marwan was one of the best spies in espionage history,” explains Ahron Bregman from the department of war studies at King’s College, London. “He was the perfect spy. He was not only clever and very, very efficient but he was also very close to the information.

He was a relative of [Gamal Abdul] Nasser [the Egyptian president from 1956 until 1970] and he was the right hand man of President [Anwar] Sadat [who ruled Egypt from 1970 until 1981].” So, when Marwan told Zamir that the following day at 6pm Egypt and Syria would launch an attack on Israel, there was every reason to believe him. But was this a genuine leak from the very centre of Egyptian power or was ‘The Source’ delivering information that was designed to deceive? All-out war On the morning of October 6, 1973, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the Israeli cabinet met in an emergency session. It decided on the immediate mobilisation of reservists and devised a defence plan, codenamed ‘Dovecote’, which would be triggered two hours before the start of the battle. At 2pm, 6,220 Egyptian air force jets crossed the Suez Canal, heading for Sinai, while Syrian jets simultaneously began a massive aerial strike on Israeli positions in the Golan Heights.

The two countries had launched an all-out war against Israel – and they had done it four hours earlier than ‘The Source’ had led the Israelis to believe they would. Their aim: to liberate the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights - territories occupied by Israel six years earlier during the Six Day War. Despite earlier intelligence warnings of an upcoming Arab attack, the head of Aman, Israel’s military intelligence, General Eli Zeira, was convinced there was nothing to worry about. As a result, Israel was completely unprepared. Its regular army was outnumbered and its reservists were not yet in place. While Sadat’s close relationship with the Soviets guaranteed a supply of military hardware, the Israelis knew that he had been unable to obtain the latest generation of attack weapons and that without them their military might outweighed that of Egypt. But, ever since the humiliation of the Six Day War, Egyptians had longed to see their country fight back. “There was a devastating feeling of crisis and defeat then,” explains Egyptian author and journalist Gamal El-Ghitani.

And while the Egyptian people agitated for war, the most powerful constituency of all, Egypt’s army, was also desperate to show that it could take on – and defeat – the enemy it faced across the Suez Canal every day. A point to prove Aware that his country’s weapons were dated and that it lacked the ability to liberate the Sinai in its entirety in a military operation, just four months after taking power, Sadat had offered the Israelis a peace deal if they would withdraw from Sinai. Golda Meir, the then Israeli prime minister, rebuffed the offer. So, left to contemplate a war, Sadat found an ally. Syrian President Hafez al-Assad had come to power through a coup d’etat in 1970, and he too had a point to prove to his people. Hisham Jaber, the director of the Middle East Studies Centre in Beirut, explains: “Hafez al-Assad was the defence minister during the 1967 defeat, and was held mainly accountable ….

So, since al-Assad came to power in Syria, he started to absolve himself of the 1967 defeat, and to prepare the Syrian army for the next battle.” In a series of meetings throughout 1973, Sadat and Assad refined their war plan, giving it the codename ‘Badr’ after the Prophet Mohammed’s first victorious battle. Crossing the Suez Canal Syria began concentrating its troops in the Golan, while Egypt did the same on the Suez Canal. But, having responded to a similar build-up five months earlier only to find that the Egyptians had gone no further than the edge of the Canal, Israeli military intelligence was determined not to make the same costly mistake. “In a document that Aman published at noon … [on] October 5, it was a perfect description of the Egyptian army [getting] ready to go to war,” says Israeli military historian Uri Bar-Joseph. “The bottom line was we nevertheless believed that there was no change in the Egyptian estimate regarding the balance of forces with the IDF, and therefore the likelihood for war is low.” Within minutes of the first aerial attacks, a massive artillery barrage began.

Under the cover of artillery fire, the first wave of Egyptian ground troops crossed the Canal – 4,000 men in 720 rafts. With the war already half an hour old, ‘Dovecote’ was rushed into action. But, by 5pm, 45 Egyptian infantry battalions had crossed the Canal. ‘Dovecote’ had failed. By sunrise on day two, the war appeared to have been an unequivocal success for Egypt’s armed forces; 100,000 men, more than 1,000 tanks and over 10,000 other vehicles had crossed the Suez Canal with only minimal losses. An advantage lost On the Golan front, three Syrian infantry divisions crossed the 1967 ceasefire line known as the Purple Line. And, two hours into the war, the Syrians gained their first significant victory when they captured ‘Israel’s Eye’ – a key Israeli vantage point 2,000m above sea level on top of Mount Hermon. The Syrians were overtaken by enthusiasm during the first two days, thinking they can overpower Israel.

Hisham Jaber, the director of the Middle East Studies Centre in Beirut By nightfall on October 6, pushing through unguarded holes in the Israeli line, Syrian tanks entered central Golan. But by midnight, with the Syrians having made major gains, the order came to stop the advance and to regroup for another assault in the morning. Before them, the roads stretching down to the Jordan Valley and the heart of Israel lay undefended. Just a few kilometres to the east, on the edge of the Golan, were positions which, had they been taken, would have been virtually impregnable. But al-Assad controlled the Syrian army with an iron grip and no one was allowed to deviate from his original plan. Within hours, almost a quarter of a million Israeli reservists were mobilised. The Syrians had calculated that it would take the Israeli reserves 24 hours to reach Golan. But, the first tanks were there by midnight - just 15 hours after they had been mobilised. Shortly after dawn, ignoring the fact that the Israelis had successfully mobilised to meet them, the Syrians launched their planned tank assault. Their main target was Nafakh, the Israeli advanced command centre and the strategic crossroads that controls the Golan.

The Israeli forces managed to stop the Syrians but paid a high price in soldiers and tanks. By the end of day four, in a place in northern Golan that became known as the ‘Valley of Tears’, the Israelis had destroyed hundreds of Syrian tanks. “The Syrians were overtaken by enthusiasm during the first two days, thinking they can overpower Israel. That means taking over the Golan, and approaching occupied Palestine. They thought they could end the war,” explains Jaber. “But they overstretched themselves, and suffered huge losses of tanks during those first three days.” On the defensive In Sinai, however, the Egyptians had used their success on day one to secure defensive bridgeheads, and were subsequently prepared for the inevitable Israeli counterattack when it began on October 8. Yosri Omara from the Egyptian 2nd Infantry Division recalls: “We received orders to fire. We fired at them with every weapon we had …. It was a massacre … in the true meaning of the word …. The Egyptian RPG soldiers were moving like birds, like birds jumping from one tree to another. They would hide behind a ramp till the tank was 50m away and within range, then they fired at it.

They would knock that one out then move on to the next tank.” For the first time in its 25-year history, Israel was on the defensive. And, as the first week of the conflict concluded, it suffered another serious blow. On October 13, in front of the world’s media, the last of Israel’s Bar-Lev line of fortresses along the eastern coast of the Suez Canal surrendered to the 43rd battalion of Egyptian commandos. “I couldn’t believe my eyes, seeing the Israeli soldiers waving the white flag, and humiliated,” says Hamdy El-Shorbagy from the Egyptian 43rd Commando Battalion. The streets of Cairo filled with Egyptians reveling in their military’s triumphs and the first liberation of land occupied by Israel in the Six Day War provoked an enthusiastic response across the Arab world. But in less than 24 hours, Israel had mobilised two armoured divisions, which soon turned the Syrian advance into a retreat. The Israelis advanced, capturing territory deep inside Syria. Two different wars Eight months earlier Sadat and Assad had forged the plan to launch a war against Israel on two fronts. But it now seemed that the two presidents had entirely different concepts of the war they had planned together.

“Assad told me that from the moment of his seizure of power, his ambition, his dream, was to avenge the defeat of 1967 when Syria had lost the Golan to Israel and when Assad himself was the defence minister,” says Patrick Seale, a British journalist and Hafez al-Assad biographer. “So I think he felt it as a personal responsibility for the recovery of the land. Assad saw the war, which he was planning, as a war of liberation.” Sadat, on the other hand, had sought a limited war to focus the minds of the world’s superpowers, and to jump-start the stalled peace process. A week into it, Sadat’s personal target had already been surpassed, and a swift victory appeared to be in sight. So when, on October 13, the British ambassador to Egypt delivered an offer to broker a UN ceasefire resolution, which he said the Israelis were prepared to accept based on the current positions, seduced by success, Sadat refused. He would, he stated, only accept a ceasefire if Israel withdrew from the whole of Sinai. “Things were going very well for Sadat,” explains Abraham Rabinovich, the author of The Yom Kippur War.

“He didn’t want to stop the war. Something dramatic had to be done to persuade him to agree to a ceasefire; maybe even to get him to request a ceasefire, and the only thing that could work was [the] crossing of the Canal. That might scare him enough.” On the morning of October 14, the Egyptian armour moved east. But the Israelis were waiting in pre-prepared positions and, within the first few minutes of battle, the Egyptians suffered significant casualties. By midday, 250 tanks had been lost and the Egyptian general command ordered all advancing forces to retreat. On the Syrian front, the Israelis had suffered heavy losses, but achieved significant gains - advancing to within 35km of Damascus, and occupying new territories to bring to the bargaining table. They were now able to turn their attention south to the Egyptians. The plan to cross the Suez Canal had been finalised and given the name ‘Stouthearted Men’. But first they would have to take on the southern flank of the Egyptian 2nd army, which stood in the way of an Israeli advance.

The Battle of Chinese Farm The ensuing fight would centre around an Egyptian agricultural development on which work had begun in the early 1960s with the help of Japanese experts. When they had occupied the area during the Six Day War, the Israelis had mistaken the Japanese writing on irrigation equipment for Chinese. The farm had now been recaptured by the Egyptians but at dusk on October 15, Israeli tanks started their assault on the ‘Chinese Farm’. By the morning of October 16, 15 rafts had reached the Canal and begun ferrying Israeli tanks to the west. The crossing went almost unnoticed by the Egyptians and, later that same morning, in his first public appearance since the war started, Sadat led a victory parade through the streets of Cairo. Egyptian reports about the Israeli crossing were confusing and underestimated the scale of the problem. It was only when the Israeli forces in the west went on the offensive that the Egyptians realised their enemy was already in their backyard. The Egyptians suffered heavy losses. After two days of heavy fighting over the Chinese Farm, the remnants of the brigade that had blocked the road to the Canal retreated - but only after making the Israelis pay a steep price.

“Yes, [it was a] painful victory, very painful, mainly because of the dead and the wounded,” remembers Uri Dan, an Israeli war correspondent. “In one night of the crossing of the Canal, we lost some 400 people. Tanks were fighting, some of them we saw in broad daylight later, one barrel against another, like two sword combatants in medieval time[s]. But, here they were tanks, both of them destroyed, maybe most of the people in … them dead. The valley of death next day, along the Canal was terrible, but we were on the other side of the Canal.” On October 18, the Israeli high command decided to capitalise on the successful crossing, building their presence on the western bank of the Canal to three armoured divisions. One division would move north to surround the Egyptian 2nd army and capture the city of Ismailia. The other two divisions would move south to encircle the Egyptian 3rd army and capture the city of Suez. Soon after, Sadat summoned the Soviet ambassador to Egypt and told him that he was ready to accept a ceasefire. This time, however, it was the Israelis who had no interest.

“We can say that Israel had a greater interest in the ceasefire not kicking in right at that moment because it still had work to do – still territory it wants to capture,” explains Rabinovich. Global implications Two weeks into the war, and with the opposing forces locked in a stalemate, Henry Kissinger, the US secretary of state, arrived in Moscow. His goal was to agree a UN ceasefire acceptable to Egypt’s Soviet allies. On October 22, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 338, calling for a ceasefire. The fighting was due to stop at 6.52pm Middle Eastern time. But as morning broke on October 23, Israelis forces went into action as normal. By the end of the day they had bypassed Suez City and reached the port of Adabia. The Egyptian 3rd army, dug in on the eastern side of the Canal, was surrounded by Israeli troops on every side – 35,000 men were cut off from their bases. On October 23, the Security Council reconvened to confirm the ceasefire - issuing Resolution 339 and directing that UN observers be dispatched to the front.

This new ceasefire was scheduled to go into effect at 7am the following day. But, once again, Israel broke it. “Their main target was a big city, the conquering of a big city, either Ismailia or Suez. A city with a big name,” explains El-Ghitani. “They were fighting more of a media battle, but at the same time, they wanted to achieve a bigger political goal.” The battle for Suez Until the Six Day War, Suez was a flourishing industrial city and port. But after 1967, the city found itself on the frontline between Egypt and Israeli-occupied Sinai. A target for Israeli attacks, it was soon reduced to rubble. A quarter of a million people were evacuated leaving the city virtually abandoned. Just 5,000 people remained to manage the infrastructure and man the remaining factories. Early on October 24, just as the new ceasefire was scheduled to start, Israeli tanks and troops moved into the semi-deserted city. But they soon encountered resistance from a small militia. By the time they were driven from the city, 80 Israeli soldiers were dead and 120 wounded.

On the same day, an alarming message reached Washington: the Soviets were considering taking unilateral action to impose the ceasefire. With Richard Nixon, the US president, submerged in the ‘Watergate Scandal’, it was left to Henry Kissinger, the US secretary of state, to handle the crisis. He decided to respond to the Soviet threat with a show of force. The US armed forces state of alert was raised to the highest level in peacetime. Walter J Boyne, the author of The Two O'Clock War says: “The question of the US versus [the] Soviet Union always boils down to mutual annihilation: we could’ve killed everybody in the Soviet Union, they could’ve killed everybody in the US, and the rest of the world would’ve gone. It was an absolutely insane situation. The thing that saved it was that each side knew that if a war occurred the leaders themselves would get killed. So when you know you are going to get killed in a war, not just some poor peasant soldier is going to get killed, you make different decisions about starting a war.” The next day, diplomacy prevailed, the Soviets stepped back and the alert was defused.

But for a full 24 hours, the world had stood on the brink of a war between two nuclear superpowers. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council issued Resolution 340 – its third in less than four days. Fighting on alone As the balance shifted in favour of Israel, other Arab countries sent troops in support of Syria and Egypt. The Syrian front was strengthened by the arrival of expeditionary forces from Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The plan was to use this cocktail of Arab forces to drive the Israelis out of the pocket they had occupied in the Syrian mainland. The date of the attack was set for October 23. But it would never happen, because Egypt’s Sadat had accepted a UN ceasefire that would take effect that evening. Al-Assad now faced the prospect of fighting on alone, so the Syrians, too, bowed to the inevitable. But one major open sore remained for Tel Aviv. The Israeli listening post on top of Mount Hermon had been captured by Syrian paratroopers on the first day of war. With Israel now in the ascendant, on October 23, the Golani Brigade attacked. They suffered heavy losses but secured their prize. I definitely don’t think that there are any winners in war.

There'll be someone who loses more, someone who loses less, but there are no winners in wars, and that’s something which has stayed with me since 1973. Yoram Dori, 600th Israeli Reserve Armoured Brigade On the Suez front, 35,000 Egyptian troops remained in a perilous position, cut off from their supply line. But the Israelis were also facing a major problem. For the first time in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Egypt was holding a large number of Israeli prisoners of war - 230 in total. In Israel, demonstrators took to the streets, accusing Golda Meir’s government of not doing enough to bring the captured soldiers home. On October 28, Israeli and Egyptian military leaders met to negotiate a ceasefire. It was the first meeting between military representatives of the two countries in 25 years. But the negotiations quickly became strained as skirmishes continued in the confusion of the battlefield. Shuttle diplomacy Meanwhile the effects of this war began to be felt globally. Arab oil-producing countries had formulated a plan to use the price of oil to pressure Western supporters of Israel.

By mid-October several of the biggest producers had unilaterally raised prices by nearly 20 percent. On Tuesday, November 6, Kissinger, flew in to Cairo for his first ever meeting with Sadat. Four days later, an initial agreement was signed guaranteeing daily convoys of non-military supplies to the city of Suez and the besieged Egyptian 3rd army. Four days later, prisoners from both sides were exchanged. As the New Year arrived, Kissinger returned to the region to hammer out the next step in his grand plan for Egyptian-Israeli disengagement. On January 11, 1974, he arrived in the southern Egyptian city of Aswan to meet Sadat. The next day, he left for Tel Aviv. Both sides accepted a disengagement agreement and a new term had entered the lexicon of international politics – shuttle diplomacy. On January 18, 1974, General Mohamed El-Gamassy, the Egyptian chief of staff, and General David Elazar, his Israeli counterpart, signed an agreement that was the first in a chain that would lead to total Israeli withdrawal from Sinai in April 1982.

“The greatness of that war, the October war, was that it had [an] impact not only on the political, military and security level, but on the Israeli citizen himself, in accepting the idea that I can leave the land I occupy to feel more secure,” says Mansour Abdul Wahab, an Egyptian political analyst. But as Israel’s troops celebrated their withdrawal, the mood back home was different. “Israel lost 2,600 men – killed. Per capita, this is three times the death rate of the Americans in Vietnam over 10 years. This Israel suffered in three weeks,” explains Rabinovich. A Commission of Investigation headed by the president of the Israeli Supreme Court placed the blame firmly on Israel’s military. It cleared Meir and Moshe Dayan, the country’s defence minister, but the Israeli public was not appeased. Demonstrations broke out and, nine days after the commission published its report, Meir resigned. Meanwhile, the Israelis were still occupying a salient deep inside Syria, not far from the capital Damascus. So, in May 1974, Kissinger set out on his second round of shuttle diplomacy, this time between Damascus and Tel Aviv.

After almost a month of hard talking, the US secretary of state managed to secure a second breakthrough in the region when, on May 28, Israel approved a disengagement agreement with Syria. It was signed in Geneva on June 5, bringing the War in October to an official end after 243 days of fighting. Yoram Dori from the 600th Israeli Reserve Armoured Brigade says: “I definitely don’t think that there are any winners in war. There’ll be someone who loses more, someone who loses less, but there are no winners in wars, and that’s something which has stayed with me since 1973.” Source: Al Jazeera

Question: The Yom Kippur War, or October War, took place during which year?
Answer: 1973